Seasonal cycles and winter storms bring extra-high "king tides" that can swamp coastal structures and habitats. What’s a coastal dweller to do? Take pictures! It’s no joke: Educators from the California King Tides Initiative explain how citizen snapshots can be of real value to researchers and policy makers.

Exploratorium at the Piers: Building the Exploratorium at Pier 15: Timelapse(Clip)

Running Time:00:01:38

Watch the Exploratorium's construction process from December 2010 to November 2012 in under two minutes. Come see for yourself—doors open at Pier 15 on April 17, 2013.
http://press.exploratorium.edu/exploratoriums-net-zero-energy-goal-for-new-waterfront-home-2013/
Images courtesy of Ken Murphy. Music by Wayne Grim.

Just outside the hum and buzz of San Francisco, there's a hum and buzz of a different sort.
It's the sound of thousands of acres of almond crops being pollinated by bees—bees in such demand
that they must be trucked in from as far as Texas. Almond grower Dave Phippen explains why.
keeping this winged labor force happy and healthy is a vital but tricky business.

The Wave Organ is a wave-activated sound sculpture located at the end
of a jetty in the San Francisco Bay. It was created by artist Peter Richards
and master stonemason George Gonzalez in 1986.

The installation is an unlikely sight: a collection of curbstones and
cemetery stones that appear in the Bay like an ancient ruin or a strange
dream. In this unusual place of discovery and contemplation, the musical
phenomenon is only part of the point.

In this audio slideshow, Peter Richards, now a senior artist at the
Exploratorium, shares his inspiration for creating this piece and explores its
function as a theater in which many different kinds of human experiences
unfold.

Faultline: Seismic Science: Is California Going to Fall Into the Ocean?(Podcast)

Running Time:

Can pets predict earthquakes? Do quakes happen more often at certain times of the day or year? And could a really big one mean the end of California? Exploratorium geologist Eric Muller separates earthquake fact from fiction.

Peter D'Amato of California Carnivores describes how a pitcher plant gets insects drunk and then devours them. He also cuts open a plant to find the insects trapped within and to show "what ravenous, gluttonous pigs these plants can be."

Sonoma Valley farmer Bob Cannard doesn't fight nature: he collaborates with it. The result is bountiful fields of healthy, beautiful plants, some of which end up in the kitchen at Alice Waters' Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California. Here Bob speaks eloquently about appreciating and respecting nature. As he says, "it's simple...it's all right there before you."

Webcasts made possible through
the generosity of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The Jim Clark
Endowment for Internet Education, the McBean Family Foundation,.and the Corporation for Educational Networks Initiatives in California (CENIC).